CEN­TRE STAGE

Con­clu­sion of fea­ture ad­dress de­liv­ered by Dr Eliz­a­beth Nunez at the St Joseph's Con­vent, PoS, Past Pupils' As­so­ci­a­tion Hall of Ex­cel­lence In­duc­tion Cer­e­mo­ny on Oct 20.

?Can you achieve ex­cel­lence by in­sist­ing on al­ways do­ing the right and eth­i­cal thing? It de­pends on your de­f­i­n­i­tion of ex­cel­lence. If your goal is mon­ey or pow­er, I think the route may be a pre­car­i­ous one. I do not think it is by chance that Je­sus speaks of the dif­fi­cul­ty for a rich man to at­tain Heav­en. He seems to be speak­ing of the eth­i­cal choic­es that one is of­ten faced with on the way to at­tain­ing wealth. "...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to en­ter the king­dom of Heav­en. Again I tell you, it is eas­i­er for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for a rich man to en­ter the king­dom of God."

I be­lieve Je­sus is say­ing that the high­er we go up the lad­der of suc­cess, the more we gain mon­ey, the more we achieve pow­er, the more, how­ev­er, we are faced with temp­ta­tions to ac­cu­mu­late even more mon­ey, achieve even more suc­cess, even more pow­er. The temp­ta­tion to take un­eth­i­cal paths to achieve wealth and pow­er be­comes greater. In oth­er words, it seems to me that here Je­sus is giv­ing us a warn­ing: the path will not be eas­i­er for the rich and pow­er­ful; it will be hard­er. I re­main, how­ev­er, an op­ti­mist. I am in­spired by the les­son Ed­ward Kennedy gave to us. I am in­spired by this wealthy and pow­er­ful man who had atoned for his un­eth­i­cal acts by be­com­ing com­mit­ted and de­vot­ed to so­cial jus­tice and by his gen­eros­i­ty to the less for­tu­nate. I am in­spired by the choice my fa­ther made of tak­ing the risk of an un­known fu­ture with ten chil­dren and a wife who de­pend­ed on him, rather than make what he seemed to be­lieve was an un­eth­i­cal choice. This choice cost him many tor­tur­ous hours of anx­i­ety and I be­lieve, in the end, the pub­lic ac­co­lades which I know he de­served for his con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the ear­ly days of in­de­pen­dence.

But my fa­ther was not think­ing on­ly about his im­me­di­ate fu­ture; he was think­ing of the fu­ture of his chil­dren, and, by ex­ten­sion, the fu­ture of his coun­try. He set an ex­am­ple for his chil­dren that con­tin­ues to in­flu­ence my sib­lings and me in the de­ci­sions we make. As an ed­u­ca­tor for more than 30 years, I have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pass on this les­son my fa­ther taught me to thou­sands of stu­dents. I con­tin­ue to pon­der this sub­ject and will for the months ahead as I work on an­oth­er nov­el. I am struck by the no­tion that sac­ri­fice is al­ways re­quired for re­demp­tion and sal­va­tion. In Christ we have the supreme ex­am­ple. So I have come to the con­clu­sion that there are oc­ca­sions when we may have to for­go the re­wards of achieve­ment. Those are the times when the price for suc­cess re­quires us to en­gage in un­eth­i­cal be­hav­iour. But by for­go­ing achieve­ment when it re­quires this price we will nev­er for­go ex­cel­lence, for I don't be­lieve that ex­cel­lence can be achieved by com­pro­mis­ing one's eth­i­cal val­ues. Ex­cel­lence is on­ly ex­cel­lence when it is yoked to eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples.

By choos­ing to do the right thing, we not on­ly gain in­ner peace, we not on­ly gain peace of spir­it and heart, but we chart a fu­ture for our fam­i­lies, friends and coun­try when no one will have to for­go suc­cess and achieve­ment be­cause of their re­fusal to make un­eth­i­cal choic­es. Again, I thank you for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of shar­ing my thoughts with you. My con­grat­u­la­tions to the six out­stand­ing alum­ni who will be in­duct­ed this af­ter­noon: Sis­ter An­nette Chow, Claire Har­ris, Vel­ma Jar­dine, Cather­ine Ku­mar, Bar­bara Salazar, and Marie Terese Ng Chow. n Eliz­a­beth Nunez, PhD, is a City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor and an award-win­ning au­thor of sev­en nov­els, in­clud­ing An­na In-Be­tween (New York Times Ed­i­tors' Choice Sep­tem­ber 2009), Pros­pero's Daugh­ter (New York Times Ed­i­tors' Choice; 2006 Nov­el of the Year, Black Is­sues Book Re­view) and Bruised Hi­bis­cus (Amer­i­can Book Award). She is co-ed­i­tor with Jen­nifer Spar­row of the an­thol­o­gy Sto­ries from Blue Lat­i­tudes: Caribbean Women Writ­ers at Home and Abroad. Nunez is ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er of the 2004 NY Em­my-nom­i­nat­ed CUNY TV se­ries Black Writ­ers in Amer­i­ca. She di­vides her time be­tween Ami­tyville, New York and Brook­lyn.

?Ver­ba­tim